Personal musings on Israel, Jewish matters, history and how they all affect each other

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Demographics and the Long-Term Israeli Victory

Not long ago I read an article about some Israeli legislation in the 1950s. It was sobering to see that I'd never heard of almost any of the legislators involved in the matter; even the high-ranking cabinet member who had been presiding over the circus was a fellow I'd never come across before, and in the interval have once again forgotten. Fame is fleeting, it seems.

This is one of the main drawbacks to blogging, as I've noted before. It's extremely contemporary, which means, it's of the most fleeting importance. No one reads blogposts from two months ago, and why would they? No-one remembers that Bill Clinton and Yitzchak Rabin got off to a cold and stony start, as did Bush II and Sharon, not to mention Reagan and Begin, or Carter and Begin; Bush I contributed significantly to the downfall of Yitzchak Shamir in 2002: Nu, so what? Did it make any real and lasting difference, the kind that anyone will remember in 50 years? (Shamir who? Or, let's see who can arrange the following presidents in correct chronological order: Taft, Roosevelt, Hoover, Wilson, and the other Roosevelt).

Barry Meislin has uncovered an article in the Asia Times (of Hong Kong) that takes a very long look. So long, as a matter of fact, that none of us will be alive to test his full thesis, which deals with the year 2100. Yet the demographic trends he discusses will be felt - or not, if he's wrong - well before the end of the century, demographic developments being what they are.

Like the vanishing point in a perspective painting, long-term projections help us order our perceptions of what we see in front of us today. Here's one to think about, fresh from the just-released update of the United Nations' population forecasts: At constant fertility, Israel will have more young people by the end of this century than either Turkey or Iran, and more than German, Italy or Spain.

With a total fertility rate of three children per woman, Israel's total population will rise to 24 million by the end of the present century. Iran's fertility is around 1.7 and falling, while the fertility for ethnic Turks is only 1.5 (the Kurdish minority has a fertility rate of around 4.5).

Not that the size of land armies matters much in an era of high-tech warfare, but if present trends continue, Israel will be able to field the largest land army in the Middle East. That startling data point, though, should alert analysts to a more relevant problem: among the military powers in the Middle East, Israel will be the only one with a viable population structure by the middle of this century.

That is why it is in America's interest to keep Israel as an ally. Israel is not only the strongest power in the region; in a generation or two it will be the only power in the region, the last man standing among ruined neighbors. The demographic time bomb in the region is not the Palestinian Arabs on the West Bank, as the Israeli peace party wrongly believed, but rather Israel itself.

The key part of the article is this:

The right way to read this projection is backwards: Israelis love children and have lots of them because they are happy, optimistic and prosperous. Most of Israel's population increase comes from so-called "secular" Israelis, who have 2.6 children on average, more than any other people in the industrial world. The ultra-Orthodox have seven or eight, bringing total fertility to three children.

Europeans, Turks and Iranians, by contrast, have very few children because they are grumpy, alienated and pessimistic. It's not so much the projection of the demographic future cranked out by the United Nations computers that counts, but rather the implicit vision of the future in the minds of today's prospective parents.

And then this:

This, I believe, explains the implacable hostility of Israel's neighbors, as well as the Europeans. It is the unquenchable envy of the dying towards the living. Having failed at Christianity, and afterward failed at neo-pagan nationalism, Europe has reconciled itself to a quiet passage into oblivion.

Israel's success is a horrible reminder of European failure; its bumptious nationalism grates against Europe's determination to forget its own ugly embrace of nationalism; and its implicitly religious raison d'etre provokes post-Christian rage. Above all, it offends Europe that Israel brims with life. Some of Europe's great nations may not survive the present century. At constant fertility, Israel will have more citizens than any of the Eastern European countries where large numbers of Jews resided prior to the Holocaust.

From there on it gets better. Read the whole thing, if only to raise your spirits. By the time he gets disproved we won't be here to notice anyway.

I don't get this line:"Most of Israel's population increase comes from so-called "secular" Israelis, who have 2.6 children on average, more than any other people in the industrial world. The ultra-Orthodox have seven or eight, bringing total fertility to three children."

How can most of the increase be coming from the seculars and the ultra-Orthodox at the same time? And if the ultra-Orthodox increase is going to be so big, how will that help Israel's standing military when they don't even join it and just use up welfare?

If 18 million of those are Jews, more Jews will live in Israel than at any time in history. The Arabs will probably be around 400 million by the end of the century but a country's power is not measured by the strength of its army or its prosperity but by its spiritual attachment and the happiness of its people.

Israel will thrive, grow and prosper even in the absence of peace while the Arabs will stagnate, decline and die. That is unless there is a revolution in the Arab outlook.

"Israel's success is a horrible reminder of European failure; its bumptious nationalism grates against Europe's determination to forget its own ugly embrace of nationalism; and its implicitly religious raison d'etre provokes post-Christian rage. Above all, it offends Europe that Israel brims with life."

How could these claims possibly be substantiated? It's notable that the author doesn't even try to provide evidence; he just asserts.

"This, I believe, explains the implacable hostility of Israel's neighbors, as well as the Europeans."

How confident he is in his powers of psychological analysis! Contrary to the ressentiment thesis that Israelis seems so fond of telling themselves (much like the American ressentiment thesis that they hate us for our freedoms), many of the Arabs in the region I've spoken tend to speak admiringly of Israel's technological and economic accomplishments. They dislike Israel in spite of that admiration, not because of their jealousy.

As for the general demographic argument, I think the history of demographic predictions indicates the follow of attempting to project demographic trends very far into the future. It's certainly an interesting hypothetical, but to take such an arrogantly confident tone belies a complete lack of humility.

I believe the author was saying that, in absolute terms, "secular" Israelis currently account for the largest percentage of the population, and thus even though they have fewer children per couple, secular children are the largest section of today's birth cohorts just by virtue of there being more secular parents.

Note that the secular birthrate is 2.6, and the Haredi one is 7.5, but the average for everyone is 3. Logically, the secular sector must be significantly larger than the Haredi sector, or otherwise the average would be closer to 5 or 6.

In absolute terms, secular parents as a group are bringing more babies into the world than Haredi parents as a group. In relative terms, the Haredim are having far more children per couple. Different ways of describing who has the most kids.

It would be very nice if it came to pass. However, I'm wondering where 24 million people will fit into a country the size of Israel. The last third of the article which describes the fate of Egypt and Syria seems the most realisitc appraisal.